The Interworld
by Jekrox
Summary: The Tenth Doctor has regenerated - and found out what happens once you reach the other side. Setting taken from Tom Pawlik's novel "Vanish" and it's sequel "Valley of the Shadow." I would have liked to xover but it didn't work
1. Regeneration

"I don't want to go!"

The Doctor's body was breaking down. It had started as soon as he had absorbed that energy from the nuclear bomb. Saved Wilfred. He'd said goodbye now. He began to glow. _Hang on,_ he thought. _This is way more violent than anything I'm used to._ The pulsating energy out of him was far stronger and far more destructive than the other regenerations he'd done over the years. He could faintly see a column inside the TARDIS' console room knocked over. The windows at the doors of his ship were smashed out. And he could feel it going down. But then... it stopped. It all stopped.

He was lying down. On a couch. "Who do we have here?" an old man asked, curiously peering at the Doctor as he lay on the couch. And the Doctor was shocked – he could have sworn that he'd had that voice eight regenerations ago. He sprang up with a start. "Oh, it's that one. I met you – ___did you put your shields up in the end?" The Doctor recognized that voice. "No. I still crashed into the Titanic." "We've been there how many times now?" the fourth Doctor asked. "I bolstered the count up to 16. Visited any more times then?" the ninth Doctor asked. "No. It was a starship. Floating above earth. Hang on, how did I get here? More importantly, where is here?"_

_"__Indiana. A farm in stinking Indiana," his immediate predecessor replied. "But I was..." "Regenerating." All of the Doctors surrounding him managed to finish his thought in sync. "How did you know?" he asked. "We all got here the same way. Someday, the guy who follows you might show up." The sixth Doctor replied. "I only had to wait a couple of days." The eighth Doctor said. "I can't stay here. I have to... move on." the Doctor was getting agitated now. These men were him, but they obviously didn't understand him like he understood them. "No-one's tried leaving before." The second Doctor said. "Well I'm different." The Doctor replied, defiantly. "Must have been a violent regeneration." The seventh Doctor whispered to the third._

___The Doctor grabbed some supplies from the kitchen inside the small house he was in and headed away from the farm. "You won't survive ten seconds out there," a man called. He caught the Doctor by surprise – he wasn't him. "There are creatures. Monsters. Some called them aliens. But this is Earth – everyone's just been abducted." "Who are you?" "Name's Howard Bristol. This here farm's mine. I've been alone, aside from some passers-by, for years now. And we always hear the screams of people dying who leave this farm. They come and go." "I'm leaving – I'm going to find my way."_

_"__Good luck with that."_


	2. Company

"Hold on – I'm coming with you."

The Doctor heard a familiar voice from inside call to him – it was the ninth Doctor.

"Why the urge to join me?"

"Because if you're anything like me, which I know you are, you're stubborn, rash and can act without thinking sometimes."

"Well then we'd better get going."

And so they set off – trying to navigate the waste town that was this Indiana. All the while, the ninth Doctor just stared ahead, silently fuming as the tenth could remember him doing, and the tenth Doctor wondered what he could have done in just fifteen minutes to put himself in his own bad books.

"Now I know that back in the day, I had a bit of a temper but would you mind telling me what is that bugs you so much?"

"I can't doubt that you loved her as much as I did. Couldn't hope to. But you haven't even mentioned her – usually they talk about who they were with when it happened, they said. The first thing the others were told was about this friend or that companion. But you – I get the feeling that you were alone. And that either means that she left, or something happened to her. But Rose wouldn't leave – not ever."

"She didn't go without a fight. We were up against Cybermen and, well, she got stuck. On a parallel world."

"Don't try to pull that – parallel worlds are sealed off."

"No, not all of them. She got stuck there with Jackie, Mickey and an alternate version of her father."

"Rickey and motor mouth? Lucky girl. But I get the feeling that the story didn't end there."

"No, because she ended up building a dimension cannon. So that she could come back. And she did, but I got shot by a Dalek."

"Oh, please don't tell me they came back **again**!"

"Tell me about it. Anyway, as I was going to regenerate, I poured the regenerative energy into my spare hand that got cut off, and when my companion Donna touched it, she made another me."

The Doctor fought back his emotions about Donna and his feelings for Rose. He missed them both, and he hoped that he had done the right thing by them. And even though he knew that wasn't the best he could have done, he was going to be a bit useless well, disembodied as such.

"And I left Rose with that other me on her parallel universe."

"That wouldn't happen to have been an instantaneous biological meta-crisis, would it?"

The Doctor was impressed. "I am clever!" he yelled, and grinned. "So you left her with a man who looked like you, and thought like you, but only had one life."

Both Doctors smiled. The ninth was definitely content – his successor had done by Rose what he thought was right. And it was. But the tenth couldn't help but fester the emotions about his companions that he'd felt over the years. The sorrow, and the anger. His memories from the Time War flashed to the surface. Suddenly, Daleks started to rain from the sky. "Get back!" he yelled. And he was afraid. Suddenly, something very big let out a huge roar.

"What the hell was that?"


	3. Punishment

"I have no idea, but we'd better keep running!"

But the Doctor wasn't listening. The ninth Doctor sprinted off down the street, but the Doctor wasn't listening. He could hear the Daleks screaming for his extermination, but he wasn't listening. Because, all he was doing, all he could bring himself to do, was watch what was across the road.

Rose.

His Rose.

"She's not real, it's just an illusion, come on!" the ninth Doctor was desperate now. Either these Daleks (which he knew weren't real) or that hideous monster that was on their tale (that seemed to be mainly real, judging by its roar), was going to get them. And his idiot replacement was staring at the fake Rose standing across the road.

"You couldn't say it. You never would," Rose called.

_Jeez,_ the ninth Doctor thought, _she doesn't even sound real. This guy must be a total sucker._ But it seemed that, what the fake Rose had said really struck a chord. A tear ran down the Doctor's face.

"I'm sorry," He screamed, and the ninth Doctor knew that he meant it. But Rose just turned around, watching as another Doctor walked to her, took her hand and pulled her into a kiss, just like the one they'd shared on Bad Wolf Bay after the other Doctor had whispered to her that he loved her. They turned to leave.

"No, Rose, come back! Please!" he was on the ground now, sobbing, as if he was in physical pain. The destruction around him didn't matter – Indiana was being destroyed by Daleks as they watched – It was his rejection by Rose that was killing him. The monster was roaring louder now.

"We've got to get out of here!" the ninth Doctor screamed. He'd had enough of this guy's visions and illusions. He dragged him, literally kicking and screaming, into an unused carpark and they began to open the back of a van. Only, once they got in, both men knew that this was no van.

"What's the TARDIS console room doing in the back of a truck in abandoned Indiana?" the ninth Doctor asked, knowing that another trip down memory lane for his weeping successor was getting too close for comfort.

"Shhhh... I know what this is."

"I thought we'd try the planet Felspoon first..."


	4. Confronting Deeds

"I can't watch this again."

"But for some reason, you have to, so obviously we'd better do it then."

The two people in front of them quite clearly couldn't hear them.

"I want to stay." It was getting closer now, so close. And the Doctor was crying. Inside him, he felt his stomach twist and tumble. He wanted to scream. And he did.

"Donna! NO!"

"Donna. Oh, Donna Noble. I'm so sorry. But we had the best of times. The best."

And as they watched, Donna fell into the old Doctor's arms, as he still sobbed.

"What was the point. Why am I being shown this? What's it all for?!" he screamed.

But the ninth Doctor didn't respond. He just walked to the doors and left. The Doctor followed him. But as they walked out of the van, they knew that where they were was definitely not Indiana any more. They were in London. And neither of them had noticed the cloaked figure follow them out of the van.

A whole planet was tumbling out of the sky. A great, big, orange planet. Heading for Earth.

"But that's Gallifrey. What's it doing there?" the ninth Doctor asked, clearly quite confused.

"Falling," the Doctor replied, sombrely. "Falling out of the sky and only I could stop it."

Quite suddenly, Gallifrey vanished out of the sky. No longer was it falling – no longer was it there.

"But how?"

"I closed the link. Saved the universe. And caused the end of my time as the Doctor." A piece of debris fell in front of them and threw them back onto what they expected to be pavement, but really was granite. A granite floor in one of the most beautiful mansions either of them had seen. With a strange, technological gate in front of them. And there, standing in a glass box, was Wilfred Mott. And he knocked. He knocked four times. Again and again. And so, the Doctor they saw before them knew.

The two dead men watched the Doctor walk into the radiation chamber and scream with pain.

"You sacrificed yourself for him. For that man, who probably only had a couple of years left. But was it worth it?"

"Yes, oh yes. Wilfred saw his granddaughter marry – not many men get the chance to do that."

And as they watched, he walked out, and left with Wilfred. They went to follow them, but, as they entered through the door frame, they were back. In an abandoned parking lot in Indiana. And again, they didn't notice the cloaked figure follow them and hide away in the bushes.

The creature, whatever it was, was roaring again, but the Doctor was really listening this time. He could tell. It wasn't roaring – it was laughing.

"Hey, you! Up there!"

The monster stopped. It stared down at them, and started laughing at them.

"You are puny, and stupid. You have lead a useless and meaningless life. Your ending was..."

"Oh, no, don't start with that. 'Cause I figured it out ages ago... sorry, but even though I've been upset, I've still been paying attention. You've grown a heap larger since the last time we saw you, and you only appeared after I was scared of the Daleks. You grew, because I was sad about Rose and Donna. I think, that you're about as real as him."

He pointed an accusatory finger at the ninth Doctor.

"Me? What are you talking about?"

"Sorry, but it was so obvious. You knew things that I had no idea of when I was you – and if I know enough about my real predecessor's temper he wouldn't have settled for the solution I provided Rose with. Isn't that right Martha?" the Doctor called, into the bushes.

The cloaked figure walked out of her hiding place and removed the hood she wore to protect her face.

"But how did you know?"


	5. The Truth

"I never forgave myself for letting you go – not ever. You were amazing, Martha – of course, this would have been relevant if it really was you. Nobody tried to confront me about you because nobody thought that I cared. Everybody overlooks Martha – but Martha was just as important as the lot of them."

The fake Martha smiled. "I know what Martha means to you, so this is the guise I wear. The guise of the neglected hero."

"Martha Jones is a hero. She saved the whole world; she hunts aliens with that crazy man of hers, Mickey. Her story keeps going."

"I am neglected as a favourite, just as she was. I am the existence that enters undetected – the saviour of the Doctors. You woke me, with the pain you projected."

A great thud flung the pack into the sky as the giant, imposing creature sat in boredom. "Are you quite finished musing?"

"Not in the slightest," the Tenth Doctor said, as he brushed away the lethargy of the giant monster and focused on the task at hand – escape. Well, that and the ability to accept his fate. _I accepted this. I've let it happen..._

_You haven't, Doctor._

The intrusion into his own musings was unwelcome, and the Doctor was surprised. He looked at Martha, shocked.

"You really have no right to snoop on what others are thinking. It's quite unbecoming."

"Have we finished this self destructive session? Because it's time for me to take you outwards."

The Doctor had almost forgotten the presence of his (fake) predecessor.

"You're not taking me anywhere."

"The point of following you was to take you outwards into the forest – you're being bathed in the blood of this realm, and staying here forever. I'm not having you continue your path."

_Neither of these people are real, _the Doctor thought. _Nothing here is real._

"My path?"

"If I'm not your predecessor, then where is he?"

An elderly man with white, curled hair stepped out from behind the Ninth Doctor.

"Show off," the Doctor muttered from under his breath.

"A curious question indeed, young man. Hmm? Quite curious."

"Where did you come from?" The Ninth Doctor asked, addressing the First, who had appeared out of thin air.

"I've taken to the ability of spying on all of you, and I must say that it is trifling. Learning the secrets that I would dare keep to myself... that is rather exciting."

"You're the oldest – what's your opinion on the matter? And, for the record, are you even real?"

"I've seen a number of future incarnations waltz out of a painful regeneration and just... mope. Just be sorry for themselves. You two, on the other hand, are different." He pointed at the Ninth Doctor. "You were expected – but you made yourself happy already." Spreading his arms wide in gesture, the first Doctor was on a roll. "Each of us, as Doctors, didn't fulfil what we had set out to achive at the time of our regeneration. I simply collapsed of old age – my successor was exiled by the Time Lords."

At this point, Martha picked up on the train. "The Third Doctor was anguished about Sarah Jane being alone, and the radiation poisoning had made him practically mad. The fourth fell off of a radio tower – still struggling with those delusions of grandeur. The Fifth Doctor was being mentally attacked at the time of his regeneration."

The Doctor took on the reins. "The Sixth was killed in an attack from the Rani, the Seventh died on the operating table, the Eighth in the Time War..."

"And the Ninth Doctor dies after having... as they do say, 'planted one' on the girl of his dreams, as I'm told. He's truly content, and he's accepted what's going to happen. Granted, he's nervous, but not fighting it in the least." The First Doctor looked expectantly at the Tenth Doctor, to fill in the gaps he's missed.

"I died in pain, not resigned – my last words were, in fact, 'I don't want to go.' At the same time I was so sad, so upset – I knew it was coming. A prophecy, I'd known for a while. My song was ending, but there was nothing I could do about it. I fought it off for as long as I could, but in the end I passed."

"You had a fight within your heart, a big struggle. That's why the urge to explore was so great in you – we all died with a listlessness about us that we've not been able to shake. It's my theory that if we band together, we can fight to move on. You need the strength of the other eight of us in order to make your way to wherever it is we need to go. It's time to put our individual destinies aside so that you can lead us into the waiting journey."


End file.
